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The Street
The Street
Dan Weil

Cathie Wood Watch: Ark Sells Tesla for Second Straight Day

Cathie Wood, chief executive of Ark Investment Management, liked her trades so much Thursday that she repeated some of them Friday.

Ark funds sold 130,698 shares of electric vehicle titan Tesla TSLA Friday, valued at $24.9 million as of that day’s close. Until Thursday, Wood had been buying the stock for more than five months.

She is one of Tesla’s biggest proselytizers and has called her previous sales of the stock profit-taking. It remains the biggest holding by far in Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF ARKK.

Wood forecast in January that Tesla could rise as high as $1,700 in the next five years. It recently traded at $190 and has jumped 54% year to date. But it’s still down 43% over the past 12 months.

DON’T MISS: Cathie Wood Plows Millions Into Her Newest Investment

Wood forecast in January that Tesla could rise as high as $1,700 in the next five years. It recently traded at $190 and has jumped 54% year to date. But it’s still down 43% over the past 12 months.

Ark funds bought 298,471 shares of Block SQ Friday, valued at $18.1 million as of that day’s close.

Block stock has plummeted 17% since March 21, as short sellers Hindenburg Research published a blistering criticism of the financial services company. It has lost 54% over the last year.

Block is the seventh biggest holding in Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF, moving up one since Thursday.

Finally on Friday, Ark funds snatched 185,227 shares of Coinbase Global COIN, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, valued at $12.6 million as of that day’s close.

The company’s shares have tumbled 70% over the past 12 months amid turmoil in the cryptocurrency market. But they have rebounded 73% this year, helped by bitcoin’s recovery. Coinbase is the fourth biggest holding in Ark Innovation.

Wood’s Lagging Returns

Meanwhile, Wood’s performance hasn’t exactly lit the investment world on fire over the past year, as her young technology stocks have slumped. Ark Innovation has descended 42% during that period and 76% from its February 2021 peak.

Nonetheless, the fund has bounced back 20% so far this year, as tech stocks have rebounded in general.

Mama Cathie, as Wood is known to her fans, defends her strategy by noting that she has a five-year investment horizon. But the five-year annualized return of $7.2 billion-asset Ark Innovation was negative 0.22% through March 24, compared with positive 10.87% for the S&P 500.

The fund’s performance also doesn’t come close to Wood’s goal for annualized returns of 15% over five-year periods.

She may be losing her popularity. Ark Innovation suffered a net investment outflow of $304 million during the past five days. But it enjoyed a net inflow of $156 million over the last year, according to ETF research firm VettaFi.

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